The aim of a low-carb diet like the ketogenic diet is to get your body into ketosis. Many people go on the keto diet to lose weight; but, the state of ketosis has a lot to do with improving certain health conditions.
Read this post to the end to get more facts on ketosis and few tips to reach the state.
What is Ketosis?
Ketosis is the state whereby the body converts fat stores into energy, releasing ketones in the process.
Ordinarily, the body uses glucose produced from carbs as their primary source of energy. But when the body reaches a state of ketosis, the body devises a mechanism of burning body fat stored as glycogen for energy.
To get your body into ketosis, one of the major things to speed the process is your diet. Diet plans that may induce this state of ketosis are ketogenic diets. The Keto diet is popular for weight loss but it also has numerous health benefits.
Some of the health-related conditions that a keto diet may improve include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. This diet may also improve levels of HDL cholesterol (high-density lipoproteins, also known as “good” cholesterol).
While trying to reach ketosis with the ketogenic diet, here are simple tips to get your body into ketosis fast.
8 Simple Tips To Get Your Body Into Ketosis
1. Reduce Carb Consumption
A major consideration for reaching ketosis is to restructure your diet. A reliable means to do that is to go for the Ketogenic diet meal plan.
This diet plan is a low-carb diet with a food list containing primarily fats and proteins. Minimizing the intake of carbs will surely induce the state of ketosis that you desire.
For you to reach ketosis, you have to cut down significantly on carbs because it is the only way your body can produce ketones.
Naturally, the body breaks down carbs to produce energy and unused glucose is stored in the body as fat. Consuming fewer carbs, therefore, is an alternative adaptive mechanism to get your body into ketosis. How?
When carb intake is very low, glycogen stores are reduced and levels of the hormone insulin decline. This allows fatty acids to be released from fat stores in your body(1). The liver converts some of these fatty acids into the ketone bodies.
These ketones are what your body will start to use as its primary source of energy. Hence, the state of ketosis is reached.
2. Increase Your Physical Activity
When you are restricting carbs intake with the ketogenic diet, an improved physical activity may enhance ketones production.
In normal circumstances, exercises and physical activeness drain your body of its glycogen stores. And with your regular diet, the fat you burn is replaced because of high-carb contents that later transforms into glucose and then glycogen.
However, when you complement your low-carb diet with exercises, glycogen stores remain low. Thus, rather than replenishing glycogen stores, your liver increases its production of ketones for fueling the body.
Further confirming the relevance of exercises to ketosis, studies show that exercise increases the rate of ketones production. Getting physically active doesn’t mean that you have to engage in rigorous workouts.
It is enough if you could have a daily jog, or run that won’t last for more than 30 minutes. And even if your schedule doesn’t afford you that time, there are some other things you could do. Some of these include:
- Using the stair instead of the elevator
- Riding a bicycle to a nearby store instead of your car
- Try walking home from the nearest bus stop daily
- Make some simple moves in your room every morning.
You can do just about anything to keep yourself active. Just be sure you’re not living a sedentary lifestyle.
3. Increase Healthy Fat Intake
There has been a long-standing myth regarding the consumption of fats. Many people believe that fatty foods are taboos and must be avoided as they are major causes of heart diseases, obesity, and other critical health conditions.
It is true that foods containing fat may be injurious to health. However, there are several healthy sources of fats that are beneficial to health.
To get your body into ketosis, these healthy fats food sources also play a significant role. This is why low-carb diets like the ketogenic diet lay more emphasis on the consumption of fats.
Choose your sources of fat wisely because they all will have some sort of effect on your ketone levels. Consuming healthy fats has a way of boosting ketone levels. Make the right choices of fats from a variety of plant and animal sources to get your body into ketosis in no time.
Mind you, and it has to be with the consumption of fewer calories. Some healthy sources of fats include olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, butter, lard, tallow, avocado, salmon, tuna, e.t.c.
4. Fasting
Going long hours or at times a full day is relatively one of the quickest ways to be in ketosis.
Fasting could also be intermittent in such a way that you would only have to skip some meals. You could have only breakfast and decide to take your fast until dinner time.
Also, it could be a “no-food” day till dinner. But the point I’m making here is that fasting also helps to boost your ketone levels. When you fast, you’re starving and keep away from eating.
This means that you’re not supplying your body with any food source at all to produce energy. Then what happens? The body switches into the alternative strategy mode of producing ketones and burning fat for energy.
Related: How to Use Intermittent Fasting Results to Lose Weight in 14 days
5. Eat Protein Adequately
Please note the word! ADEQUATE! Not too little and not too excessive.
While on a ketogenic diet to be in ketosis, you are advised to consume a moderate quantity of protein sources. This is because proteins are further broken down into amino acids which in turn may be used for gluconeogenesis (formation of new glucose).
Not all the organs in the body can make use of ketones as fuel. Thus, taking enough proteins will help to fuel organs like the red blood cells and portions of the kidneys and brain that can not depend on ketones.
Apart from gluconeogenesis, proteins ensure the maintenance of muscle mass. While your body is burning fat because of the increased production of ketones, you might suffer from loss of muscle mass if you don’t take protein.
So protein intake helps to preserve muscle mass when you’re on a ketogenic diet.
6. Use MCT Oil
For ketogenic diets, medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oils like coconut oil and palm kernel oil help to produce ketones more efficiently than other types of dietary fat. Unlike most fats, the liver takes up MCTs directly and converts them to ketones.
So, to attain your ketosis state rapidly, coconut oil has to be your friend. You can include it in your meals and snacks. Take it often for the best results. You must, however, be careful while adding coconut oil to your diet.
Starting with a little quantity before gradually increasing your daily dose is advisable. This is because it may cause digestive side effects like stomach cramping or diarrhea when suddenly added to a diet.
7. Put Your Appetite on Check
If you really want to get your body into ketosis quickly, you’ve got a lot of training to do for your appetite.
Know when to eat and when not to. Try to understand your exact body signals for hunger and not just snacking. So, you have to train yourself to eat only when you’re hungry.
Most often, it is possible for you to wrongly interpret thirst for hunger. So, when you know it’s not your mealtime and you feel hungry, try to have a cup of water to fill yourself.
Rather, if you need something more refreshing, you could try some lovely keto drinks that won’t kick you out of ketosis.
7. Test Ketones Levels & Make Adjustments If Needed
Because reaching ketosis could happen differently in individuals, testing and monitoring your ketone levels could be helpful in reaching ketosis faster.
Usually, when you monitor your progress, you can easily point out if you’re making progress or not. So, when it seems like you’re not, you can easily have a change of diet to get back on track.
Testing your ketone levels could be done by using different methods. You can test ketones in your breath, blood, or urine. Ketonix meter checks the ketones(acetone) in the breath. After breathing into the meter, a color flash indicates your ketosis level.
Ketone meters measure the ketones (beta-hydroxybutyrate) in the blood. A small drop of blood is placed on a strip that’s inserted into the meter to indicate ketosis levels. And finally to test ketones in the urine (acetoacetate) you can use ketone urine strips.
You will dip these strips into urine to expect various shades of pink or purple indicating the level of ketones present. A darker color reflects a higher ketone level.
Considering the fact that these ketone testers may be expensive, it might be an easy thing to look out for some ketosis signs and symptoms. When you’ve reached ketosis, there are certain changes you might notice in your body system that will signal that you are in ketosis.
These tests and symptoms will, however, help you to determine if there is more to be done to reach ketosis.
Conclusion
Many people on the keto diet think that it is ineffective because they haven’t been able to get their body into ketosis. However, with these simple tips, you can get your body into ketosis easily.
With your keto diet, it is important that you pay attention to the tips above to get your body into ketosis quickly. Make it a habit to watch your ketones level indicators, eat right, exercise and you’ll simply smile while you watch your body melting fat.
